I have my hand on the hiking stick of AC45 #4, and Jimmy Spithill at my elbow is telling me to press a little harder, and a little harder, and we’re just shy of the Golden Gate Bridge and “pressing” means to turn the boat farther away from the wind, more toward “downwind” and back into the bay and I’ve finally extricated my foot from the loop in the line that grabbed me when I was crossing the net in the tack and I’m pretty sure that Spithill has no intention of allowing me to send this machine down San Francisco Bay with five souls aboard even if they are pros and better paid than I am but he keeps telling me to press a bit more and I can feel the boat accelerating, loose as a thoroughbred at a bugle call and Spithill is saying, “Don’t worry, mate, you’re fine, just press a little more” and I can see from the action forward that a bigger headsail is in the works and about to be deployed and I dutifully press a bit more and the boat just wants to go and at last the man says, “Okay, I’ll take it from here.” Hallelujah.

China revealed its first entry in the Volvo Ocean Race today and announced that Mike Sanderson, one of the world’s leading sailors and past winner of the race, would lead Team Sanya.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to race under the flag of such a great country and culture.”

Despite its huge technical and financial resources, the most populous nation on the planet has never won a round-the-globe sailing competition but intends to make the breakthrough, with the recruitment of New Zealander Mike Sanderson as skipper.

Sanderson, 40, is a two-time winner of the Volvo Ocean Race and will chase a hat trick of triumphs with a crew that mixes experienced sailors with relatively raw Chinese members.

Team Sanya is the seventh world-class contender to join this year’s race, with Sanderson going head-to-head with some of the sailing’s biggest names.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to race under the flag of such a great country and culture,” said Sanderson today at the Team Sanya launch in central Beijing.

“We are building up a strong team and are ready to take on this exciting challenge. Our approach will be one of compelling intent, working fast and smart, representing this great country and team with ambition, dynamism and colourful energy.”

How competitive do you think an old boat can be?

We have to be very careful with modifications to the boat to maintain its grandfather status. But we have a bulb weight advantage and keel weight advantage.

A few things we have thought are: Ericsson 4 was fast at the start, il mostro was fast upwind and Telefónica was fast in light wind.

We have to work with weather models to see what are ideal characteristics.

The five new boats have to be angled to be good at high speed. With the sails restriction this time, you could put yourself in a corner.

This next Volvo Ocean Race is going to be the most competitive one we’ve ever seen. Looking at all the teams, it’s very hard to make differences between the boats so we may have to position ourselves slightly differently for this campaign.

But we will be there to pounce when other teams are having a bad leg. When I was asked if we could be compared to a small F1 team which gets out the way of the bigger teams, I replied this will not be happening!

Will you be getting the top boys from ABN AMRO? How easy is it to get people to join?

The timing is good in the sailing world. There are a lot more America’s Cup sailors around now.

The Volvo Ocean Race sailors are getting older, but the guys from ABN AMRO and illbruck are still in the game, so the pool to pick from is getting bigger. I’ve been blown away by how many people there are to choose from.

At least five or six fast helmsmen from ABN AMRO could do it again. A fast helmsman would do a lot for the race.

Two of the most competitive yachts in the world are coming together for the first race of the Newport J Class Regatta, R.I. USA – a series of five races from 15-19 June. The yachts, their entourage of support boats, containers and Crew have been arriving over the last few weeks in preparation for this event: bringing the famous J Class yachts back to sail on Newport waters.

Both yachts have been practising on the proposed course around the harbour and under the famous Newport Harbour bridge. With 175 feet of mast above the deck there is little clearance for these yachts, making sailing under the bridge truly spectacular. Racing is due to start at 1.00pm local time on a start line near Fort Adams, allowing spectators stunning views of these wonderful classic yachts.

VELSHEDA dates back to 1933 when she was owned and built by Mr Stephenson, to spar against the UK yacht ENDEAVOUR. RANGER is a replica build of the famous original, launched in 2002. The original successfully defended the America’s Cup against ENDEAVOUR II in 1937.

80+ hours of LIVE sailing on Sail TV over the next two weeks

Audi MedCup 2nd regatta starts in Marseille (France) and will be live on Sail TV from today, Wednesday June 15th – 19th with coverage starting at approximately 1250 CET.

World Match Race Tour will be held in Portimao (Portugal) with daily live coverage from Wednesday June 22nd to Sunday 26th with coverage starting at approximately 1300 CET

Kiel Week “Kieler Woche TV powered by Audi” offering live coverage every day from June Saturday 18th right through to Sunday 26th, with coverage starting at approximately 1130 CET. More than three million people from 70 countries visit the biggest summer festival in northern Europe. A truly massive event that Sail TV is proud to be part of. Yachting makes up a big part of the programme with 26 different classes of boats racing throughout the event. http://www.kieler-woche.de/eng/sailing/boat_classes/boat_classes.php

As well as the browser environment – www.sail.tv, live coverage can also be viewed through www.sail.tv/mobile (iPad and iPhone) and ROKU set top box – live coverage direct to the TV set available for bars yacht clubs around the world and to the 1 million USA homes that use Roku’s set top box.